By K.C. Soares, Contributor
A REGULAR reader of my column, having knowledge of my background in agriculture, recently asked me what can be done to return the sector to its glory days. He mentioned that there has been, over the years, a steady decline in almost every crop. Citing sugarcane and bananas as examples, he reminded me that in 1965 we were producing more than 500,000 tonnes of sugar, while in the year 2000 we could only muster 180,000 tonnes and that bananas had declined from 150,000 to 40,000 tonnes over the same period. The situation, he pointed out, was not much better with respect to livestock enterprises.
I told the reader there are three basic things that must be done before there will be any semblance of progress in agricultural enterprises. I pointed out that there has to be a complete restructuring of the bodies governing the different crops, easy access to credit at low interest rates and an there must be informed selection of crops to pursue.
The governing bodies to which I refer are organisations such as the Banana Industry Board, Coconut Industry Board, Coffee Industry Board, Cocoa Industry Board, Sugar Industry Authority, Pimento Industry Board and so on. Do we really need all these boards? Are they all that functional? I am of the opinion that they are not. If one should have a close look at the composition of the boards one will observe a great degree of "cliquism", which is to say a recycling of the same people. This is an unhealthy state of affairs as it does not allow for openness and new thinking and therefore there has to be a staleness of thought.
NATIONAL FIGURES
It is my experience that some of these organisations at times present to the Ministry of Agriculture and ultimately to the nation figures that are not consistent with the truth. Often times we are led to believe that things are rosy when the very opposite is true.
Consider the following. I was employed to one of the boards mentioned above as a senior extension officer. A planting programme for new acreages of the crop administered by the board was implemented islandwide and I was asked to report on the progress of this venture. I spent six weeks travelling the island and recorded the new acres of the crop being planted, taking into account plots of even less than one acre. I recorded 1,009 new acres of the crop. I took this figure back to the board and was promptly told that the figure presented could not be forwarded to the Minister of Agriculture. Instead, a report was made by the board that 10,000 new acres of the crop were planted under the programme.
What type of planning can be made with erroneous data of the magnitude outlined above? How can we expect progress with attitude of this nature? This experience was one of the many that convinced me that I should return to banking.
BLATANT WASTE OF FUNDS
Take another case again from the same board. The motor vehicle assigned to the managing director was in need of repairs, which would have taken between one and two weeks in a repair shop. One would have thought that the obvious thing to do to ensure that the managing director was mobile during this period was to rent a car. This was not the case as the board thought it necessary to purchase a brand new vehicle with similar luxury. When the original vehicle was repaired the recently purchased vehicle was passed on to the managing director's wife who, as you may imagine, was not an employee of the organisation. A blatant waste of funds as far as I am concerned. These are the little things that add up.
It is my opinion that funds allocated to the different boards can be utilised in a much more efficient manner. Too much funds are suspended in the administration of these boards with very little reaching down to the farmers where the funds are really needed to enhance the growing of the crops involved. Shouldn't the farmers come first as they are the ones planting the crops, taking the risks, repaying the bank loans and ultimately maintaining the sector? I think they should be. Too often they are taken for granted.
There cannot be boards without farmers but there can be farmers without boards.
K. C. Soares is a former banker and is now a business consultant with Soledad Financial Services Limited. E-mail: soledad@netcomm-jm.com.
